Welcome to the second week of the Explore the MTBoS 2017 Blogging Initiative! If you didn’t participate in Week 1 but want to jump into Week 2, we’d love to have you!

Years ago, Riley Lark spearheaded an amazingly awesome virtual conference on Soft Skills. It was in 2010 to be specific, and the blogging prompt was on something we don’t often talk about:

I’ve organized a ‘conference’ to focus more specifically on the soft skills we need to be effective teachers. Not the killer worksheets, or the progressive grading systems, but on the skills of raising children. This conference is a great opportunity for us to share the way we bring out the shy kids in our classes, handle teasing, build confidence, create opportunities for leadership, and acknowledge the beauty and significance of the blossoming lives for which we are responsible.

My contribution to this virtual conference was one of the hardest things for me to write. I spent days thinking about it, and after I had finished writing a long winded post, I realized how much veneer I had put on my thoughts, and how I am really crappy at soft skills. So I deleted it all and started over. I love kids and I love teaching, but these “soft skills” are hard. But they are central to being a master teacher.

So here’s your challenge…

This Week’s Theme: Soft Skills

Go look at that virtual conference. Read some of the blogposts whose summaries speak to you. And peruse the sample prompts Riley included at the bottom of this post calling for presenters to help you brainstorm ideas.

Write your own blogpost on soft skills. It could be analytic or emotional. It could capture a teacher move or response you have, or it could be a story.
(In my opinion, Rebecka Peterson is the master of soft skills, and she writes about them on the one-good-thing blog regularly. Not explicitly. But I learn about soft skills by reading about her moments, her feelings, her empathy, her graciousness. She shows, not tells.)

Tweet out your blogpost! Be sure to include the hashtags #MTBoS #MtbosBlogsplosion in your tweet!

Once you are finished with your blog post, fill out the form below and your blog post will be featured on this site next week!

Deadline: Press submit by the end of the day Saturday, January 14, 2017.